Bloomberg Stakes a Billion

It seems a little early for an independent candidate who won't be spending a single minute on fundraising to be easing in earnest into the fray, but it's beginning to look like Mike Bloomberg's lacing up his campaigning shoes.  After all, why bother?  The earlier he jumps in, the earlier his media star can peak and fizzle.  Not only doesn't he need to raise money, he doesn't need to worry about a primary contest either.  The billion dollars he's prepared to spend should enable him to secure him a ticket to November in nearly every if not every state.

Maybe he was buoyed by the Daily News poll that showed him strongly favored by New Yorkers over Rudy Giuliani in a hypothetical Presidential match-up.  Or maybe he figures the timing is right to collect some of campaign staff eager to scurry off McCain's sinking ship.

"Some of the people on McCain's [presidential campaign] staff have been calling me to see if Mike is running because they are ready to leave the McCain campaign, which is a biplane on fire and spiraling down," the Bloomberg adviser said.

(Okay, they used the aviation metaphor, I went nautical.  I like mine better.  After all, it's harder to survive a bail out from a fiery biplane.)

With a billion-dollar budget, an independent Bloomberg could outspend the two major party candidates combined, even in this record-setting election cycle, so from the perspective of pure political intrigue, his prospective candidacy is, well, intriguing.  His ludicrous 20% victory margin in 2005, as a [nominal] Republican in a city with a strong Democrat registration advantage was a testament not only to the sheer amount of money he's willing to spend on campaigns, but to the effectiveness of the campaign organizations he builds.  If he does jump in with an instantaneous 10-figure budget, I think he becomes a truly viable candidate.

Even shy of a win, he'd be a major game-changer as a potential spoiler for either side.  His spectrum-spanning political identity, both in terms of policy and party registration, make the Bloomberg Effect hard to quantify.  It'll depend not only on where his national politics settle, but who become the potential spoilees.  His net effect could swing a number of ways, depending on whether Rudy, Hillary, Rudy and Hillary, or neither is nominated.

As a wildly successful entrepreneur whose business success makes Romney's shining career seem pauperly in comparison (Forbes officially estimates his net worth at $5 billion, but it could be as high as $20 billion), he might take a decidedly conservative fiscal tone.  Despite the fact that his basic strategy for balancing New York's budget was to introduce massive tax increases, rather than roping in government spending and/or pursuing economic growth, he'd likely need to wax conservative on the economic side to offset his decidedly liberal social and - to a mayorally limited degree anyway - foreign policies (pro-choice, pro-illegal immigration, decidedly anti-gun ownership, and recently just achingly "green").

Just this morning, I flicked on the TV to a Bloomberg commercial extolling the grandeur of his greenness.  I'm not sure what the commercial was ostensibly for (I was mostly asleep and shuffling toward the shower), but it sounded a lot like a thinly veiled, nationally focused campaign pitch.

On the other hand, if he can't bring himself to swear off tax hikes and embrace the goodness and light of economic conservatism, his independent candidacy may begin to look more and more like a mainstream Democratic candidacy.  This might swing the spoilage factor in favor of the Republican nominee and best of all, it'd likely provide a little protection from the nightmare scenario.  If Hillary's on the Democratic line and Bloomberg is toting a liberal policy portfolio, he could poach a lot of northeast liberal support from her.  What's more, if Rudy wins the GOP line and hasn't sustained too much friendly-fire damage from the primary, the NY candidate trifecta might conceivably put the state in play for Republicans, assuming Clinton and a fully liberalized Bloomberg split the left roughly evenly.

Again, though, the actual Bloomberg Effect is tough to gauge, not knowing what kind of agenda he'd craft or who winds up winning the primaries.  The only safe bet is that it'll be hugely significant to the outcome of the contest.

And to the media's 2008 ad revenues.